


i'm coming home, i'm coming home

by kearlyn



Series: i'm coming home [1]
Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ares IV crew, Gen, Isolation, Malnutrition, mark is a little messed up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:35:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4988665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kearlyn/pseuds/kearlyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark Watney never manages to make contact with Earth and NASA never realizes that he survived the storm and evacuation on Sol 6. So, needless to say, the crew of the Ares IV is incredibly surprised when they land on Mars to find a scruffy, malnourished, mentally unbalanced, but still-alive astronaut waiting for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I watched The Martian and loved it. It has everything I love about a story in general and a sci-fi in particular. And I could not get it out of my head. When I got home, I had to immediately go out and buy the book, then read that cover to cover. And my brain was still being eaten by its awesomeness. I’m supposed to be doing prep work for NaNo, but this fic just ate my brain so much I had to write it.
> 
> So less than a week after going to see the movie, I have an entire series worth of The Martian AU fic in my head.
> 
> I’m going to have to write until my brain stops.
> 
> It may take a while.

Leah Stein had wanted to be an astronaut for as long as she could remember. As a child, she’d spent countless night in the backyard with her mother and a telescope, naming the stars and dreaming up stories of the valiant space explorers traveling between them. College had taken her into astronomy and a boyfriend had brought her to the Air Force.

The boyfriend was long gone and she’d been right at home in the Air Force, but when NASA had come looking for pilots for its Ares missions to Mars, Leah hadn’t hesitated for a second.

The notification that she’d made it into the final selection pool for the Ares IV mission had come just two days before the Ares III disaster and Mark Watney’s death.

It had cast a pall over the entire program and for Leah it had reminded her that space, for all its beauty and adventure, was cold and unforgiving to those who ventured beyond Earth’s embrace.

Now, standing on the surface of Mars and looking out over the burnt orange horizon, Leah felt again that sense that she was a tiny part of a much larger universe.

“You good, Stein?”

Leah jumped and turned to find the source of the voice in her comm.

Blair Ortega, the mission commander, stood behind her. Like Leah, Ortega was a military man, but she knew his professional exterior hid a nerd that still saw the universe with child-like wonder. They’d shared enough sci-fi movie marathons on the journey from Earth for her to know that he was just as excited to be here as she was.

The sunlight reflected off the dome of Ortega’s helmet, obscuring her view of his face, but she could the small frown pulling at his lips.

“I’m good,” she said. “Just thinking.”

He nodded. “Well, do your thinking on the way out to the MAV,” he said.

“Aye, aye captain,” she said, tossing out a sloppy salute. She heard him sigh as she plodded over to one of their two rovers and hauled herself inside.

She settled herself into the driver’s seat and took a moment to look out over the construction work her crew was busily undertaking on their Hab. Most of the components were already assembled and had been dropped down to the surface upon the Hermes’s arrival in orbit, but the crew still had work to do to make the structure livable inside and fully functional. Solar panels, water tanks, communications arrays, and outdoor equipment storage all had to be set up and tested before their scientific work could begin.

Checking the rovers was one of those tasks. Leah ran through the checklist methodically as the rover booted up. The systems came online quickly and without any glitches — as she had expected.

With a careful touch and a constant eye on the vehicle’s rear cameras, Leah backed the rover away from the Hab and pointed it towards the far edge of the Schiaparelli Crater.

She drove the rover slowly away from the Hab, waving at Dale and Fowler, who were setting up their small solar farm, as she passed them. Leah would be out helping them, but Ortega had insisted that one of her first priorities was to go out to the MAV and confirm that it was fully functional and ready for departure.

It wasn’t a task at the top of NASA’s list — the MAV had been sending routine “all is well” messages like clockwork for years — but Ortega had different priorities. He and Melissa Lewis had served together and Leah knew that he’d been deeply impacted by the guilt Lewis felt for Watney’s death.

He was determined that his crew wouldn’t suffer the same fate, and he’d driven them all to near madness with safety briefings, and drills, and contingency plans since long before they’d left Earth.

Out of respect for Watney, who’d given his life for these missions, Leah never argued with anything that might keep the crew safe.

So even though getting the Hab to a point where they could conceivably live in it was of vital importance, Leah was spending her time heading out for the MAV site.

It was much farther away from the Hab than would be ideal, but strong winds during landing had put the Hab structure and the crew on nearly the opposite side of the crater from the MAV. Even with the rover, it was nearly a 30 minute trip.

As the MAV rose out of the Martian landscape, Leah furrowed her brow in confusion.

“What the…” she said.

“Is there a problem?” Ortega asked.

Leah jolted in her seat, not realizing that she’d spoken aloud or that her comm was on.

“Stein,” Ortega said, an edge of urgency in his voice, “is everything alright with the MAV?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, studying the ship as it grew in her windshield. “Something doesn’t look normal, but I’m not sure if it’s a problem.”

There was a tense moment.

“Keep us informed,” Ortega said. “You call as soon as you know anything.”

Leah nodded absently, still studying the profile of the MAV.

“You got it,” she murmured.

It was hard to make out, with the sun shining almost directly in her eyes, but something about the base of the MAV’s profile seemed odd to her. Almost… too large.

God, I hope there hasn’t been a rock slide, she thought.

She knew NASA had accounted for potential instability in the crater’s walls and landed the MAV far enough from them that there shouldn’t be any impact. And she knew that the MAV had been reporting a good status for years, but still…

She remembered suddenly a report she had read that there had been some inconsistencies in the MAV’s communications almost three years ago. She thought Mission Control had determined it to be a software glitch and performed a remote update.

But maybe Mission Control had been wrong? Maybe it was more serious?

Stop worrying until there’s actually something to worry about, she told herself sternly and dragged her thoughts away from pessimism.

Maybe it’s just sand build-up, she thought. As long as it hadn’t gotten into any critical system, sand dunes shouldn’t interfere with the MAV. The crew might have to do some shoveling to make it easier to access the ship, but sand wouldn’t be an issue.

But as she finally got close enough that the crater wall and the profile of the MAV blocked the sun’s blinding light, Leah realized that what she was seeing wasn’t sand or a rock slide.

Her mouth dropped open as she finally registered what the bulky shape at the base of the MAV actually was.

“Holy shit,” she murmured.

There was another rover parked at the base of the ship.

“Stein?” That was Ortega again.

“Rover 2 is still parked at the Hab right?” Leah asked, pulling her rover to a stop at the base of the MAV and staring at the other vehicle.

“Stein, what are you talking about?”

“Rover 2. Is it still parked at the Hab?”

“Yes,” Ortega said, sounding cautious.

“Stein, is there a problem?” That was Royce Fowler, the crew’s computers and engineering expert.

“Problem?” Leah said. “No. Weird? Definitely.”

“What’s going on out there?” That was Ashley Newman, the crew’s flight surgeon.

“Cut the chatter,” Ortega barked. “Stein, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“There’s another rover out here. And it’s not ours.”

There was a moment of silence, then the comm exploded in overlapping conversation. Leah didn’t bother to pick out the individual voices, still staring at the unexpected rover. She unbuckled her restraints in a daze and climbed slowly out of the rover. In the background, she heard Fowler muse about a secret Chinese mission, and Dale counter that it must be aliens.

“Cut the chatter!” Ortega bellowed, drowning out the other voices on the line.

The rest of the crew fell silent.

“Stein,” he said, “can you repeat? What are you seeing out there?”

“There’s another rover parked underneath the MAV,” she said. “And since Rover 2 is still parked at the Hab, this one isn’t ours.”

“Where the hell did it come from?” Fowler asked.

Leah didn’t answer. She’d reached the side of the strange rover and hauled herself up to the look in the cab. It was empty. Abandoned. The whole vehicle looked abandoned. Dust coated the exterior and the wheels were buried in sand. She couldn’t see a single track or evidence that the rover had moved recently.

“It’s been here for a while,” she said.

“Any indication where it came from?” Ortega asked.

“No… but… hang on.”

She wedged herself against the unfamiliar rover’s cab and reached out to brush the dust away from its sides.

“Holy shit,” she murmured. “It’s from the Ares III.”

“Ares III? Are you sure?” Ortega asked.

“It’s got the name on its side,” Leah said. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“How in the hell did an Ares III rover get all the way out here?” Fowler asked.

Leah shook her head, but didn’t respond. She had no answer.

She hoisted herself closer to the rover and peered in through the cab’s dirty windshield.

“However it got here, it’s empty now,” she said.

She pushed off from the side of the rover and jumped down to the ground. She stumbled a little as her boots connected, still not used to Mars’s lower gravity.

“I’m going to check out the MAV,” she said.

“Be careful,” Ortega said.

“I will.”

As she approached the MAV, a flash of sunlight on metal caught her eye. She detoured slightly and found over a dozen solar panels arranged neatly in a semicircle around the MAV’s landing struts. She reported her find to Ortega and listened to the crew debate the new details as she brushed dust away from the MAV’s access terminal. There wasn’t nearly as much dust as she would have expected from something that had been sitting unattended for almost five years.

A niggling suspicion was starting to grow in the back of her mind.

She couldn’t put it to words yet, and she didn’t try, but she knew that whatever she found in the MAV would be something explosive.

She just hoped it wouldn’t be explosive in the explosion way.

The MAV’s outer airlock cycled quickly and popped open with ease. The ladder rolled down along its track, settling easily into two indentations in the Martian dust.

“The MAV is responsive and the airlock is open,” she reported.

She could almost feel the tension over the comm line. She knew the crew was holding their comments to allow her to focus, but every scrap of their attention must have been focused on her.

She ascended the ladder slowly, doing a visual check of the airlock as she climbed. The airlock’s smooth sides closed around her and lit up as the outer airlock door thudded shut. Two of the wall lights looked to have been smashed, but Leah couldn’t tell when or how.

She rode the ladder to the top of the airlock and waited while the system cycled and re-pressurized. It felt like hours, instead of the minutes she knew it had taken. She was used to the rapid pressurization capabilities of the more modern airlocks, but thought this airlock might have been operating more sluggishly than she would have expected.

A green light above her head flickered on.

“The airlock is pressurized and the suit is reading a stable atmosphere,” she reported.

Fowler swore quietly over the comm and Leah couldn’t help but agree. The MAV wasn’t meant to have oxygen — at least, not before the Ares IV crew arrived. The ship had been remotely piloted to Mars and had stood (supposedly) empty for five years. There would have been no point in sending it to Mars with oxygen, and it shouldn’t have started to make oxygen until Leah or Fowler initiated the oxygen reclamation system during the initial system boot.

“Someone’s been here before us,” Fowler said.

“Stein, I think you should come back to the Hab. You shouldn’t be investigating this alone,” Ortega said.

“A little late for that,” Leah said.

The inner hatch had already finished cycling and was creaking open.

“Stein—“

“I’ll be careful,” Leah said. “I’m already in.”

She hoisted herself into the MAV, then had to stop and stare. The interior had been completely transformed. Sheets of plastic blocked off most of the small space, threaded between and around the MAV’s equipment. Through the semi-opaque barriers, Leah could see that the floor of the MAV was covered in what looked like Martian soil.

In a daze, she pushed aside one of the sheets.

She was right; it was Martian soil, spread across the floor, with tiny, ragged shoots of green emerging from the grit. She gaped at sight, squeezed her eyes shut, and re-opened them, wondering if this was some strange hallucination.

The vision before her remained unchanged.

“Stein, talk to me,” Ortega said in her ear.

“I—“ she started.

“Don’t step on the potatoes.” That voice wasn’t coming through the comm. It was coming from outside the suit, just behind Leah’s shoulder.

She shrieked in surprise and tried to spin around. One side of her got tangled in the plastic sheeting and the next thing she knew, she was sprawled on the floor.

“Stein!” Ortega barked.

“I’m alright,” she said absently, staring in shock.

There was a man standing just a few feet in front of her, pressed back against the MAV’s outer hull. Blue eyes peered out at her from under long, stringy hair, set deep in a cadaverously thin face. The man wore long sleeves and pants that hung off his thin frame. Blinking at them, she made out a faded NASA patch on one shoulder.

The man stared back at her looking stunned.

“Are you… are you real?” he asked. There was painful hope in his voice.

“Stein!” Ortega barked again.

She ignored him and pushed herself to her feet.

“Yes,” she said to the man. “I’m real.”

He stared at her, trembling, as she took a step forward. Closer to him, she could make out a faded Ares mission logo on the front of his shirt.

A logo for Ares III.

She peered into his face, a terrible suspicion dawning in her mind.

“Watney?” she asked. “Mark Watney?”

“What?!” Fowler said through her comm.

“Stein—“ Ortega started to say.

“Yes,” the man breathed. “Yes, I’m Mark Watney.”

“Hi Mark,” she said. “I’m Leah Stein.”

The man—Watney—swallowed hard, eyes flicking around the MAV’s interior and hands flexing.

“Are you… Ares IV?”

She nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m from Ares IV.”

There was a moment of silence, then Leah was stumbling backwards as Watney wrapped his arms around her.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he whispered. She could hear him crying through the suit’s speakers.

“Stein,” Ortega said, “what the hell is going on?”

“It’s Mark Watney,” she said, wrapping her arms around the man. “He’s alive. And living in our MAV.”


	2. Chapter 2

As the only medical professional within 140 million miles, Dr. Ashley Newman had been prepared to deal with a lot of contingencies on the Ares IV mission to Mars. NASA had been building their list of everything-that-can-go-wrong-and-kill-you for a long time, and in the years leading up to the fourth launch of the _Hermes_ it had been Ashley’s job to memorize all of it. She had spent hours poring over the medical data of every astronaut that had ever been in space and driven all three of the previous Ares mission flight surgeons crazy with a barrage of questions.

 

Nothing, however, could have prepared her for this contingency.

 

When Leah’s call had come in over the radio — that Mark Watney, tragically lost during the Ares III disaster four years earlier, was actually alive — Ashley had had to lean against a lab table in the tiny medical corner of the Hab to keep upright. Even as Ortega had demanded confirmation and the rest of the crew expressed their disbelief, Ashley’s mind was already racing down the long list of possible medical complications.

 

Four years alone on Mars. _Four years_.

 

_Good God, how did you survive?_ she wondered.

 

But there was no time to wonder, because Leah had obviously handed her comm over to Watney and his voice, shaky and hoarse, was in her ear, asking Ortega for permission to join the Ares IV crew.

 

If Ortega’s voice had been gruff when he’d welcomed Watney to the crew, and there’d been a wet, muffled quality to Watney’s voice when he’d thanked Ortega… well, no-one was going to make a big deal out of _that_.

 

Then it had been Ashley’s turn to take charge. She’d gotten an initial health report from Watney, backed up by Leah’s observations, and, despite some reservations, agreed that the best course of action would be to bring Watney straight back to the Hab.

 

She’d debated the necessity of examining Watney at the MAV before moving him, but whatever his condition, he would need to be moved to the Hab as soon as possible. And despite knowing that he’d survived four years alone and without care, she wanted him under her supervision as quickly as possible.

 

So now, here she was, nervously pacing just inside the airlock, waiting for Leah and Watney to arrive.

 

The rover had arrived back at the Hab only moments before. Ortega and Royce were waiting outside the airlock to help Leah and Watney. The Ares IV crew’s other two members — meteorologist and geologist Kelli Dale and life sciences expert Isaac Griffith — were both inside, stripped of their EVA suits, and ready to help Ashley if she needed it.

 

Ashley expected to need it.

 

Nothing in her training for this mission or in her experience at bustling urban hospitals had prepared her for a man suffering four years of isolation, limited food, and hellish conditions where a single wrong move could get him killed.

 

The sound of the airlock cycling interrupted Ashley’s nervous musings. As the inner airlock door swung open, Ashley felt a calm settle into body. This had always been the way with her: anxious until the moment of truth, then utter calm after that.

 

She was already striding forwards as four figures in EVA suits clomped into the Hab. It was immediately obvious which one was Watney. If his position slung between Ortega and Royce and the obviously older design of his suit hadn’t given him away, Ashley would have been able to identify him by the way that suit hung off his frame.

 

EVA suits were designed and tailored to fit their respective astronauts. And even with their bulk, it was obvious that this suit was much too big for the slight body that inhabited it.

 

Kelli and Isaac leapt forwards to take Ortega and Royce’s positions supporting Watney. Behind them, Leah swung the Hab’s inner airlock door shut and started to peel off her EVA suit.

 

“Hello Dr. Watney,” Ashley said, stepping forwards. “Welcome to the Hab.”

 

Behind the face bowl of his helmet, Watney’s face was thin and his eyes were glassy. It looked like it was taking every ounce of strength he had to stay on his feet. He blinked slowly at her.

 

“How about we get you over to medical and out of this suit?” she said.

 

She reached forwards to unlatch his helmet.

 

Behind Watney’s shoulder, Leah grimaced and mouthed, “Brace yourself.”

 

As soon as Ashley pulled Watney’s helmet free, she understood the warning. The smell of unwashed body and human misery billowed out from inside the suit. Ashley fought to keep her expression steady.

 

On Watney’s left, Isaac wasn’t so capable. She saw his face go a little green, his lips press together, and his throat work as he fought down the urge to gag.

 

“Sorry about the smell.” Watney’s voice was hoarse, but when she met his eyes, they were a little clearer. “I don’t think my Martian cologne is going to turn out to be a best seller.”

 

A tiny, deprecating, hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his thin lips.

 

Ashley smiled in response and felt some of the tension ease in her chest.

 

If Watney could make jokes about his situation, he could get through this.

 

“I don’t know,” Ashley said, keeping her voice deliberately light, “it might be very popular.”

 

She passed Watney’s helmet off to Leah and stepped backwards in the direction of her small medical corner. Kelli and Isaac followed, helping Watney navigate across the space. She could see the exhaustion in the man’s face, but he wasn’t stumbling and seemed to at least have enough strength to stay mostly on his feet.

 

The limp in his right leg was cause for concern though.

 

Watney snorted in response to her comment. “Unless something’s changed a lot in the last four years, I highly doubt anyone would appreciate _eau de unwashed astronaut_.”

 

Kelli huffed a small laugh and Isaac grinned.

 

“Then again,” Watney said as Kelli and Isaac helped him lean against the lab table Ashley had re-purposed as an exam bed, “I’ve been stranded on Mars for four years, so what do I know.”

 

He narrowed his eyes at them.

 

“In fact,” he said, mock serious, “for all I know, you’re all aliens who’ve invaded Earth and are just _pretending_ to be human.”

 

Isaac grinned, holding Watney steady while Kelli and Ashley helped him out of the suit.

 

“You caught us,” he said.

 

“Knew it,” Watney said. He sounded breathless, and Ashley looked up to see that he was squeezing his eyes shut.

 

She couldn’t tell whether it was pain or exhaustion or whether the reality of his rescue was just hitting him.

 

Whatever it was, she wanted him sitting or lying down as soon as possible.

 

“Alright,” she said, “let’s get you sitting down.”

 

She and Isaac helped Watney step out of his boots and climb slowly onto the table. Watney’s face was pale and his hands, little more than skin stretched over bones, trembled.

 

“How are you feeling, Dr. Watney?” she asked, stepping back to take her first good look at him. She didn’t like what she saw. The Mark Watney she remembered from the Ares III promotional images, post-disaster media frenzy, and portrait on the memorial wall had been a bright, robust man with broad shoulders and textbook-perfect health.

 

This man was thin to the point where she could see every bone in his face and hands. His clothing hung off his frame, but Ashley suspected that it hid even more disturbing evidence of massive weight loss and malnutrition.

 

Watney cracked open his eyes and offered her a crooked smile.

 

“Well,” he said, “assuming you’re all actually really real and this isn’t just another hallucination, I can honestly say that this is the best I’ve felt in four years.”

 

Ashley tried to smile back at him, but felt something cold solidify in her gut. Over Watney’s shoulder, Leah grimaced and squeezed her eyes briefly shut. Ortega, now out of his suit, just looked sad.

 

“Let’s assume I’m real,” Ashley said, “and that as a real doctor, I need to know your medical condition.”

 

Watney shrugged.

 

“Pretty poor, I guess,” he said. “I’m down to a 1000 calorie a day diet. Moving is exhausting Everything hurts these days, my leg most of all.” He touched his right leg, the one with the limp. “Protein packs and vitamin supplies from Ares III held out, but I had to keep cutting calories to avoid starving to death. Had a few accidents and injuries that never healed right.”

 

He met Ashley’s gaze. “Basically,” he said, bluntly, “I’m a wreck. But if you’re real and I actually made it to Ares IV, I can live with that.”

 

“My god man, how are you alive?” Royce asked from where the rest of the crew was standing. Hovering.

 

Watney flinched, eyes darting towards Royce, and hunched his shoulders.

 

Ashley caught a glimpse of his face and saw surprise in his eyes. She realized that he had forgotten the rest of the crew was even there.

 

Hallucinations, she remembered him saying, and hid a wince. If you didn’t interact with your hallucinations, they went away.

 

Watney still wasn’t sure they were real.

 

She opened her mouth, though she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to send the crew away or demand that they stay.

 

Ortega beat her to it. “Why don’t we give Dr. Watney some privacy,” he said, staring pointedly at the rest of the crew.

 

Watney suddenly looked panicked. “You’re leaving?” he asked.

 

Ashley quickly shook her head. “Not me,” she said, deliberately casual. She turned away to collect a tablet and to roll over her medical kit, but she kept an eye on Watney in her peripheral vision. “You’re stuck with me,” she said, and saw Watney’s white-knuckled grip on the edge of the bed ease up.

 

She glanced from Watney to the rest of the crew who were just starting to drift away to their own stations.

 

“Leah, Isaac, why don’t you stay and lend a hand,” she said. “If that’s alright with you, Dr. Watney?” she added, glancing at him.

 

He smiled his faint, ghost of a smile and nodded.

 

“Mark,” he said. “You should call me Mark. Since we’re about to get up close and personal.”

 

His tone was an attempt at jovial, but Ashley could hear the stress underneath it and could see the way Watney held himself, with a tight grip on the bed and tension in every line of his body.

 

She smiled back at him.

 

“Then you should call me Ashley.”

 

As the rest of the crew edged away, Ashley stepped forwards and set about figuring out how their miracle astronaut had survived and just how difficult it would be to get him home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who read, liked, and commented on the first chapter. Real life reared it's head in an all-consuming way these last few weeks, and it was your comments and encouragement that helped me get through it and keep writing. If I haven't responded to your comment individually, know that I read and appreciated them, and I'm trying to get back to responding now that the chapter is done.
> 
> This chapter fought me all the way, but I'm reasonably happy with it. Fortunately, NaNo has given me the boot I needed to keep writing. I'm already partway done with the last chapter (in this story) and hope that there won't be nearly so long a delay between posting.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done! This is the last chapter in this story (but not the end of the series). Somehow, this chapter ended up being much much longer than either of the first two. It's 7,000 words... I don't know how that happened. Mark started talking and it just went from there.

Blair Ortega had never expected the Ares IV mission to Mars to be easy. A pragmatic man practically from the time he was born, Blair had always approached life as a challenge to be overcome, and Mars had been no different.

 

He’d never been swept away by the idealistic fantasy of the dashing astronaut hero.

 

Part of that was a product of growing up in a military home under the parental guidance of a very logical, no-nonsense Navy father. Blair’s father had never been one to shield his son from the realities of life, especially not after the death of Blair’s mother.

 

Blair didn’t resent his father for his strict upbringing, not the way many children in similar situations did.

 

He’d always found that his father’s pragmatism made more sense than anything else, and had imbued him with a steady disposition that helped him excel when he joined the Navy.

 

The Navy was where he’d originally met Melissa Lewis. They’d never been close, her serving on a submarine and he on an aircraft carrier, but their ships had been based in the same port. They’d become casual acquaintances over early morning coffee, but hadn’t kept in touch when Blair left life on a ship for life as a test pilot.

 

It hadn’t been until Blair joined NASA, only a few weeks before the Ares III launch, that they’d reconnected. It had been surprisingly easy to build a casual friendship, and Blair had been looking forward continuing that friendship when Lewis returned to Earth.

 

Then the Ares III disaster had happened, and the Melissa Lewis that returned to Earth was not the same as the one who left.

 

On the outside, she had been the same competent, collected commander that everyone knew, but Blair, experienced at seeing underneath military masks, had seen the devastation inside.

 

He had seen the way she withdrew, the way she put up even more walls than usual, the way she constantly, silently battled with the terrible _what if_ s. She’d lost a member of her crew, and no matter how many review boards and NASA planners concluded that she’d made the right decision, Watney had been someone under Lewis’s responsibility and he’d died on her watch.

 

He’d seen the weight of his loss bend her shoulders every day since she’d come back from Mars.

 

He had no idea how badly the news that she’d left Watney behind _alive_ was going to hit her.

 

But he knew it was going to be rough.

 

Seated in front of the computer operations desk with the hum of the Hab’s machinery in his ears, he let himself have a quiet moment to breath then firmly pushed his worries from his mind. There was nothing he could do about them now. Earth was a long way away and there were much more important things to think about.

 

And most of them had to do with Mark Watney.

 

The rest of the crew, he knew, was still firmly contemplating the miracle of Watney’s survival.

 

Well, he amended to himself, Newman would be more concerned with Watney’s physical condition than anything else.

 

But the rest of the crew hadn’t yet thought beyond their astonishing discovery. He could see them across the Hab — Dale, Fowler, and Griffith — clustered together and casting looks towards the curtained-off medical area with astonished smiles on their faces. They were riding the high of Watney’s return from the dead.

 

They hadn’t yet considered how complicated their mission was about to get. Disregarding Watney’s physical condition — and Blair didn’t have to be a doctor to know that it was very very bad — their mission now had to accommodate seven astronauts instead of six.

 

And somehow, they had to find a way to get all seven of them off this planet in a vehicle only designed to carry six.

 

A vehicle that also hadn’t been designed to be used as an active living space for three to four years.

 

There were going to be a lot of challenges now that no-one had anticipated.

 

That’s not to say that Blair wasn’t thrilled to discover Watney’s survival. It was a miracle that no-one had even considered possible. The kind of miracle you got in fiction and Hollywood.

 

Not in reality.

 

And the reality of it made this already challenging mission that much more complicated.

_Easy there_ , Blair thought to himself. _Don’t get overwhelmed by this thing. Just solve one problem at a time_.

 

He drew one of the crew’s tablets towards him and began methodically making notes about everything they would now have to consider, every new parameter that Watney’s survival meant for the mission.

 

He couldn’t make any decisions without more information from Newman and consultation with NASA, but he could certainly be prepared for the discussions that would follow.

 

He had documented most of his growing mental list when footsteps behind him drew his attention away from the tablet. He looked up and found Newman standing a few feet away. Her mouth was pulled down into a frown and she blew out a frustrated breath when he met her gaze.

 

“That bad?” he asked, recognizing the tired slope of her shoulders.

 

She shook her head, leaning against the edge of the desk. She rubbed a hand over her eyes before answering.

 

“It could be worse,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s bad. Very bad.”

 

She paused and sighed.

 

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she admitted. “Well, not outside of a textbook.”

 

“Lay it out for me,” Blair said.

 

“The biggest problem is the malnutrition,” Newman said. “I’d need to review his medical file to be sure, but I’m estimating that he’s lost between 30 and 40 per cent of his original body weight, which puts him firmly under the label of starving. He’s been able to take in regular protein and vitamin supplements from the stores left with Ares III, so we likely won’t have to worry about things like anemia, scurvy, or pellagra, but I’ll keep an eye out. The bigger problems will be bone loss and muscle atrophy. The lower gravity on Mars won’t help matters there.”

 

Blair sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.

 

“What’s his long-term prognosis?” he asked.

 

Newman bit her lip, clearly thinking. “Considering what he’s been through, his condition is about as good as could be expected. But long term starvation like this can have lifelong consequences. Watney will have to be medically monitored probably the rest of his life.”

 

“Not that NASA wouldn’t do that already for a man who’s spent four years on Mars,” Blair interjected.

 

Newman acknowledged his rare flash of sarcastic humor with a nod and a brief smile of her own.

 

“Our worry now will be getting his weight back up and getting him stable enough for the trip back to Earth.”

 

Blair frowned. “Is that a concern?” he asked.

 

Newman nodded. “Spaceflight itself isn’t too taxing. A zero gravity environment would actually take some of the strain off his body. It’s the journey up _to_ the _Hermes_ that I’m worried about.”

 

“Launching into orbit puts an incredible strain on the body,” Blair said, realizing where the doctor was going.

 

Newman nodded. “And right now, there is no way his body could take that kind of strain. If we tried to launch now, it would kill him.”

 

Blair grimaced.

 

“Let’s try to avoid that,” he said.

 

“Agreed,” Newman said. She opened her mouth to say something more, then seemed to hesitate.

 

Blair raised an eyebrow in silent encouragement to continue.

 

Newman sighed. “There is also his psychological condition to consider.”

 

She saw Blair’s deepening frown and elaborated.

 

“I know he didn’t seem too bad earlier,” she said, “but we have to remember that he’s spent four years completely cut off from _any_ human contact. And dealing with the fact that, from his perspective, his crew abandoned him. No matter what he shows on the outside, no man can go through that and not be profoundly impacted. We could be dealing with PTSD, depression, high stress, mood swings, social anxiety as well as separation anxiety…”

 

Blair sighed and leaned back in his chair, contemplating the implications.

 

“Do you have a sense of Watney’s current state of mind?” he asked.

 

Newman shook her head. “He’s been fairly closed off, which alone tells us something. I remember Mark Watney being quite the social personality before Ares III launched.”

 

Blair nodded slowly. “I remember the same.”

 

He’d never really interacted with Watney when they’d both been on Earth, but he’d seen the other astronaut around the NASA campus and at NASA events. Watney had always struck him as lively and outgoing, and that impression has been reinforced by Watney’s often-humorous management of the Ares III mission’s social media presence before their launch and during the journey to Mars.

 

It was a sharp contrast to the man he’d spoken with briefly outside the airlock, but they’d only exchanged a few dozen words.

 

He would withhold judgement under he’d gotten a better sense of Watney’s current status.

 

“Is he up for visitors?” Blair asked.

 

Newman nodded. “He’s as stable as he can be,” she said. “There are no urgent medical issues and I’ve got him started on IV fluids. He’s still riding the adrenaline high of being rescued, but that won’t last forever. I figured that you’d want to talk to him before he falls asleep. Get something of a debrief before calling NASA.”

 

“Good,” Blair said. “Any kind of detailed debrief can wait until after we’ve talked to Mission Control. God knows they’ll probably have more than enough questions of their own. We don’t need to make Watney go over it any more than is necessary, but you’re right, I do need something to tell NASA.”

 

He got to his feet and gestured towards the curtained-off corner of the Hab.

 

“Shall we, Doctor?”

 

She nodded and pushed away from the table. He followed her across the open space in the center of the Hab. He was aware of the curious gazes of the rest of the crew and gestured for them to return to their work.

 

If necessary, he could brief them on Watney’s story later.

 

Right now though, he didn’t want to crowd the man.

 

Blair slipped through the curtain and into Newman’s small medical area. Watney was no longer stretched out on the repurposed lab table, but seated in the much more comfortable chair Newman used when taking the crew’s vitals and blood work. His eyes were closed and there was an IV in one arm. A quick glance told him that Watney had taken a shower and that Newman had found him a spare set of Griffith’s clothes to wear.

 

Griffith was the smallest man on the Ares IV crew, but even his clothes hung off Watney’s gaunt frame.

 

Somehow, seeing Watney clean and dressed in new(er) clothes that weren’t soiled from four years of wear just highlighted how poor the man’s condition really was. Blair could barely believe that the man was alive.

 

Blair cleared his throat softly and Watney opened his eyes. Sunk deep into Watney’s skeletal face, their blue color highlighted how pale and fragile Watney’s skin was.

 

Still, Watney managed a small smile in Blair’s direction. None of its warmth reached the tired pain in Watney’s eyes and the motion made the skin of his face pull grotesquely over his cheekbones.

 

“Hullo Commander,” he said. “Doc said you wanted to talk to me.”

 

He looked even more exhausted than he had when they’d gotten him out of the EVA suit. Blair felt a sharp stab of sympathy for the man and regretted the necessity of this conversation.

 

“I just need to get a little information about how you survived out here,” he said apologetically. “Just enough to have something to tell NASA.”

 

Watney shrugged. “I figured,” he said. “This is going to cause quite the shit storm back home.”

 

There was a small flash of humor in Watney’s eyes, there and gone in an instant, and Blair let himself smile in response. Emotion, even a brief one, was a reassuring sign of Watney’s mental state.

 

“Things are going to be interesting enough out here,” Blair said. “I don’t envy them back home.”

 

“Home,” Watney said, his eyes going distant. “It’s funny, I’ve spent so long imagining going home, and trying _not_ to imagine going home.” He met Blair’s gaze. “It still doesn’t really feel real.”

 

Blair didn’t know how to respond to that. He had no frame of reference, no procedure, for dealing with a man who’d barely managed to survive for four years on a deserted planet.

 

Before Blair could figure out what to say, Watney shook himself from his thoughts.

 

“Pull up a seat commander,” he said, gesturing to the lab table. “It’s a long story.”

 

Blair crossed the small space and hopped up onto the table in front of Watney.

 

“Do you want us to stay?” Newman asked, leaning against the counter running around the Hab’s edge. Stein stood just a few feet from her, shifting from foot to foot.

 

“You should probably stay, Doc,” Watney said. He looked at Stein and hesitated, clearly wrestling with whether he wanted her to hear the story.

 

Stein, observant as she was, quickly recognized Watney’s dilemma.

 

“Why don’t I go check in with the rest of the crew,” she said gently. “I’m sure there will be plenty of time to hear your epic tale of survival in the future.”

 

Watney’s relief was palpable and Stein slipped out through the curtains. He tried to school his face back into neutrality but hadn’t quite managed it by the time he met Blair’s gaze again.

 

“Where… where should I start?” Watney asked.

 

“The beginning,” Blair said. “How did you survive the incident on Sol 6?”

 

Watney snorted. “Incident,” he said. “Storm from hell and murderous communications equipment, and it’s called an incident.”

 

Blair winced inside and reminded himself that this was all very personal for Watney. He wouldn’t appreciate the clinical terms NASA’s review board had reduced the whole thing to.

 

“I survived,” Watney said, “by sheer dumb luck. I assume you know the basics of what happened?”

 

Blair nodded.

 

“A storm forced the evacuation of the Ares III crew,” he said. “They reported that during the evacuation you were struck by some piece of equipment—“

 

“Hab communications dish and antenna,” Watney interjected.

 

Blair accepted the information with a single nod.

 

“You were struck by the Hab’s communications array and thrown some distance from the crew,” he continued. “Your biomonitor readings indicated a suit breach and a flat line before losing signal entirely. The crew attempted to find you but the MAV was tilting beyond its safe point and they were forced to leave.”

 

He hesitated, then added, “They didn’t want to leave you. They didn’t know you were alive.”

 

Watney blinked at him in confusion, then seemed to realize what Blair was getting at.

 

“No, I never thought they did,” he said. “A piece of the array went through my suit — and me — and destroyed the biomonitor. I knew the crew would have thought I was dead. But… they still looked for me? That…” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know that.”

 

Blair reached out and laid his hand over Watney’s.

 

“They looked for you,” he said.

 

Watney gripped his hand tightly for a minute and Blair pretended not to notice the tears in the other astronaut’s eyes. When Watney’s fingers finally loosened, Blair withdrew his hand and let Watney compose himself.

 

Watney looked up suddenly, his expression urgent. “They’re okay, right?” he asked. “The rest of the crew? They’re okay? They made it home okay?”

 

Blair nodded. “Yes,” he said. “They made it home okay.”

 

He debated for a moment telling Watney how hard the man’s presumed death had hit the rest of the crew, but Watney looked so relieved to hear that the crew had made it home safely. Blair didn’t have the heart to ruin Watney’s genuine joy. There would be plenty of time to tell Watney later.

 

“Good,” Watney said, looking relieved. “That’s… that’s really good.”

 

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I always assumed that they had,” he said. “It was how I got through it, knowing that at least the rest of the crew was okay. You know?”

 

Blair nodded. He did know. He knew exactly how Watney felt, how a man could resign himself to a terrible situation as long as he knew his crew, his friends, his _family_ was safe. Blair could see, in Watney’s face and body language, how that single thought had kept the man going through his ordeal.

 

He glanced at Newman and could see the same profound realization in her face.

 

“So, after getting hit,” Watney said, dragging the conversation back to less emotional territory, “I was out for most of the night. The suit breach was small and between the rod still in it and my congealing blood, it managed to keep the atmosphere loss to a pretty slow trickle, so I didn’t die of decompression.”

 

He paused and one corner of his mouth curved up into a smile.

 

“Obviously,” he added.

 

He shook his head and the smile disappeared.

 

“I knew that, without the communication system, there was no way to talk to NASA or let anyone know that I was alive. So my only option was living long enough to meet Ares IV. You guys.”

 

“How did you manage that?” Blair asked. “Stein said something about potatoes?”

 

Watney nodded.

 

“NASA packed potatoes for us for Thanksgiving. I turned most of our Hab and both the rovers into farm space and managed to get the potatoes to grow. With some very very creative usage of space and very careful rationing, I figured I would have enough.”

 

“It seems like your math was right,” Newman said.

 

Watney shrugged. “It almost wasn’t. I had to cut my daily intake down way farther than was comfortable.” He paused and held out his hands, looking at the paper-thin skin stretched over his bones.

“Definitely farther than was healthy. I started on ¾ rations, but my math said it wouldn’t be enough. I had to cut down to ½ rations and turn some really unconventional places into farmland.”

 

“But you made it through,” Newman said.

 

“It was a lot of luck,” Watney said. “Even the best botanist on the planet, which I was—“

 

Both Newman and Blair let out little snorts of laughter at that and Watney smiled at them.

 

“Even I shouldn’t have been able to make the potatoes last,” he said. “On Earth, they wouldn’t have. But it turns out that the minerals in the Martian soil make potatoes grow like crazy.”

 

“Really?” Blair asked, leaning forward. Soil fertility on Mars was one of the experiments Ares III had been meant to perform four years earlier, but the evacuation had made that experiment — and all the others slated for that crew — a loss. Some of those experiments had been passed on to Blair’s crew, but in a reduced form.

 

Watney nodded, responding to Blair’s question. “I think I got the specific mineral composition isolated before I left the Hab, but I… or someone… would need to do experiments to confirm. And I wasn’t about to experiment with my food source.”

 

“Smart move,” Newman said.

 

“Well, it barely lasted me as is. The last thing I needed was to sacrifice any of it for experiments that could be just as easily run by people who had, you know, actual, other food. I’m thin enough. I don’t want to be any thinner.”

 

“We’ll have to do some work to get weight back on you,” Newman said, “but I’m confident that we can.”

 

Watney nodded. “That’s good to hear,” he said, another tiny small pulling at the corners of his lips. “I don’t think ‘starving Martian’ is a good look for me.”

 

Newman grinned. “Maybe not starving Martian,” she said. “But ‘first man to colonize another planet’ sounds good to me.”

 

Watney blinked, but Blair nodded.

 

“That’s right,” he said. “I heard somewhere that once you’ve grown crops on a planet, you’ve officially colonized it.”

 

“First colonist on Mars,” Watney said. There was a hint of rueful awe in his voice, but also so much pain. “I guess I can’t say that Mars was all bad then. Still a bitch though.”

 

They lapsed into silence and Blair didn’t push the conversation. He wanted the chance to gather his own thoughts and to give Watney a chance to gather his. They’d barely gotten started and had already been through an emotional rollercoaster.

 

This, more than anything Newman or the NASA psychologists might say, told him just how much damage four years of isolation and starvation and desperate struggles for survival had done to Mark Watney’s psyche.

 

“So,” Blair said finally, awkwardly. “When did you leave the Hab? Why?”

 

Watney rubbed a hand over his face.

 

“I was planning to stay in the Hab until halfway through year four when I’d have to make the journey to Schiaparelli,” he said. “Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be possible. I ended up leaving after less than a year.”

 

He caught Blair’s curious look and elaborated.

 

“About 10 months after… the evacuation… the airlock on the Hab blew out. Cause my situation wasn’t fucking bad enough. The Hab depressurized and I lost most of the potato farm. It was only by sheer dumb luck that neither of the rovers was connected to the Hab at the time, so their tiny potato farms survived.”

 

“ _Dios mio,_ ” Blair breathed, “how did _you_ survive?”

 

Watney huffed a laugh and his lips twitched into a deprecating smile.

 

“By being _in_ the airlock when it blew out,” he said.

 

Blair shook his head in astonishment, marveling at this man’s horrible, incredible luck.

 

“Is that when you injured your leg?” Newman asked.

 

Watney glanced down, pressing a hand to his right thigh. Blair remembered seeing him limping when they’d brought him into the Hab but hadn’t known that the limp was the result of a injury instead of just an effect of malnutrition.

 

“It looks like a bad break that healed wrong,” Newman said for Blair’s benefit. “We only have basic equipment in the Hab though, so I won’t know for sure until we get back up to the _Hermes_ and I can get some more detailed scans.”

 

Watney grimaced and rubbed his thigh with one hand. It looked like an absent gesture, a nervous tic that had developed over the years.

 

“I don’t think I broke it in the airlock depressurization,” he said. “I definitely injured it, because it hurt like hell for weeks afterwards and I could barely walk on it. But I think the actual break happened later.”

 

Newman nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe a deep bruising or very mild fracture then,” she said.

 

“Do you know what caused the depressurization?” Blair asked.

 

Watney nodded. “I checked the airlock after and found tiny tears in the canvas,” he said. “I figure the strain of pressurization and depressurization was finally too much.”

 

“That makes sense,” Blair said.

 

“It lasted a lot longer than it was supposed to,” Watney said, “so there’s that. But it got me thinking. If the canvas could give out here, then was it weak anywhere else?”

 

“I’m guessing you found something.”

 

“Yeah,” Watney said. “Three more weak points around the Hab. One at the secondary airlock and two more where the canvas changed shape for the living quarters and lab space.”

 

“Is that what made you decide to leave?”

 

Watney nodded. “I had no idea how long it would be before those weak points tore through as well,” he said. “And I couldn’t count on being lucky enough to be suited up and in the relative safety of the airlock the next time it happened. I figured Mars was giving me the warning that it was time to go. And since she usually _doesn’t_ warn a guy before she fucks him over, I paid attention.”

 

He sighed and looked down, twisting his fingers in his lap.

 

“I still don’t know if that was a good decision,” he said.

 

“It was,” Blair and Newman said in unison.

 

Watney blinked in surprise.

 

“How do you… know?” he asked hesitantly.

 

Blair shared a look with Newman, then sighed and explained.

 

“About a year after the evacuation, Director Sanders finally agreed to Kapoor’s requests to point a satellite at Acadalia Planitia. They pictures they got…”

 

He paused and shook his head.

 

“The Hab was gone,” he said, watching Watney’s face fall into shock. “They saw some debris, but not enough to really know what happened. The leading theories are that the Hab was destroyed by a storm of a strength they’d never recorded before, or that it was the result of not being able to follow the full shut-down procedures because of the rush of the evacuation. Either an equipment overload or even a tear in the canvas could have caused an explosive decompression that destroyed the structure.”

 

Watney blew out a breath and leaned back in his chair.

 

“That’s… wow…” He met Blair’s eyes. “I’m glad I left,” he said.

 

“We’re glad you left too,” Newman said.

 

Watney’s mouth twitched and something conflicted worked itself across his face.

 

“Why didn’t they look earlier?” Watney finally asked.

 

Blair sighed, wondering if it was a good idea to tell Watney this. It would have been so easy for NASA to realize that Watney was still alive if only they’d taken a few pictures of the Ares III site. But they’d intentionally stopped looking, and that had condemned Watney to four lonely, dangerous years on Mars.

 

He glanced over at Newman and found her frowning as well. She met his gaze and gave a little nod, then a shrug.

 

So she didn’t disapprove of telling Watney, but was ultimately leaving it up to him.

 

He glanced back at Watney and found the man studying him with a small frown. There was a sharp intelligence in the other man’s eyes, but they were also the eyes of a man who’d gone through hell and come out the other side.

 

Watney deserved to know.

 

He deserved to know every detail that had contributed to his abandonment, and he deserved to pass judgement on all of them for it.

 

“The official line is that the satellites were dedicated to other projects,” Blair said.

 

Watney raised his eyebrows. “Right,” he said. “And the fact that one of those satellites was supposed to be watching over Ares III at Acadalia Planitia for another 24 days after the evacuation? Come on. What’s the truth?”

 

“PR,” Blair said. “Mission Control will never come out and say it, but the reason they kept the satellites far away from Acadalia Planitia was PR. They didn’t want a picture of a dead astronaut on the six o’clock news.”

 

Watney snorted. “Because _seeing_ a dead astronaut is so much more tragic than _being_ the dead astronaut. Or _leaving an astronaut behind_.” He sighed and took a deep breath. “I guess I can understand. And I made it through.”

 

Blair blinked and shook his head. “I’ll be honest,” he said. “I thought you would be more upset.”

 

Watney met his gaze and there was something dark and complicated in the other man’s expression.

 

“Getting upset isn’t going to help me survive,” he said. “It does exactly the opposite.”

 

His eyes went distant and he clasped his hands together, running his thumbs across his wrists.

 

Blair swallowed and let the subject go. But he wouldn’t forget. No matter what Watney said, the man was clearly much more impacted than he was letting on. And being rescued wouldn’t necessarily make any of that impact better; it might actually make everything worse.

 

The mind had an incredible ability to protect itself and keep a person going until it was safe to break down. Blair had seen it time and time again while in the military — service men and women who were collected, cool, and stable in the worst combat situations, but who had complete mental breakdowns as soon as they were “safe.”

 

Blair, Newman, and the rest of the crew would have to keep a very close eye on Watney.

 

“How did you manage to get to Schiaparelli?” Newman asked finally, breaking the heavy silence.

 

A light came on in Watney’s eyes and the smile he aimed at Newman looked more genuine and less painful than anything Blair had yet seen.

 

“I scienced the shit out of the rovers,” he said with a grin.

 

Blair couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him.

 

“Seriously,” Watney said. “Extreme science. They’re Franken-rovers now, but they got me 3200 kilometers to here so I’m pretty proud of them.”

 

“Leah mentioned something about your crazy rovers,” Newman said. “Something about holes in the roof and saddle bags?”

 

Watney nodded. “The holes were so that I could fit in the oxygenator, water reclaimer, and atmospheric regulator from the Hab. I figured I would need them at the MAV. I know the MAV has its own systems for emergencies, but if Mars has taught me anything, it’s that there’s only good things to be had by having back-ups. And the saddle bags you’re disparaging let me bring all the Hab’s solar panels to recharge the rover batteries. It was the only way I could get the rovers to travel this far.”

 

“3200 kilometers,” Blair said. “I can barely imagine it.”

 

“ _I_ can barely imagine it, and I lived it,” Watney said.

 

“Was it a difficult journey?” Blair asked.

 

Watney shook his head, then shrugged.

 

“For the most part, it was pretty monotonous,” he said. “I actually got bored. The only thing that kept me from going crazy was collecting samples and doing what little science I could.”

 

Newman blinked. “You’re saying you have scientific data and samples from your entire journey from Acadalia Planitia to Schiaparelli?” she asked, sounding stunned.

 

Blair understood the sentiment. That kind of scientific data was something NASA couldn’t even dream of and couldn’t buy even with a dozen more Ares missions.

 

Watney grinned. “I have scientific data and samples from the day Ares III evacuated until… well… yesterday.”

 

Blair leaned back, stunned. “NASA is going to _love_ that,” he said.

 

“They’d better,” Watney said.

 

Blair shook his head, still marveling at what Watney had accomplished. To be struggling for survival every minute and still find the time —and dedication — to do scientific work…

 

Blair didn’t think he would be able to do the same.

 

“Of course, it wasn’t all smooth,” Watney said. “I had to outrun a monster of a dust storm around the Marth Crater—“

 

Blair opened his mouth to ask, but Watney didn’t pause.

 

“Then there was the almost-disaster getting into Schiaparelli.”

 

“What happened?” Blair asked, straightening in his seat.

 

Dust storms around the Marth Crater were interesting, but not immediately relevant to the mission. A problem in the Schiaparelli Crater itself — the exploration of which was Ares IV’s purpose on Mars — had the potential to directly impact his crew and their mission.

 

“Well, you know how the entrance ramp to the crater looks all smooth and solid?”

 

Blair nodded cautiously.

 

“It’s not,” Watney said flatly. “That pretty picture is just Mars luring you into a terrible trap before she screws you over.”

 

Blair winced.

 

“What happened?” Newman asked.

 

Watney sighed. “I made it most of the way down the ramp, then the rover’s wheels hit something. I’m guessing it was a sandy patch that wasn’t nearly as compacted as the rest of the ramp. Next thing I know, me and the rovers are rolling ass over tea kettle down the side of the crater.”

 

He paused and glanced at Newman.

 

“I’m pretty sure that’s when the actual break in my leg happened,” he said.

 

Newman winced. “Yeah, that would do it,” she said.

 

“How did the rovers survive _that_?” Blair asked.

 

“Hell if I know,” Watney said. “No, that’s not true. JPL designed the rovers to be pretty hardy, and I’m betting yours are even better than ours. So JPL’s design genius and more dumb luck got the rovers _and_ all the equipment through that roll. I only ended up breaking one solar panel and upending my farm.”

 

He huffed. “ _I_ ended up more damaged than the rovers or my equipment.”

 

He sighed and tugged idly at the hem of his shirt.

 

“I’m lucky that I wasn’t in any rush to get to the MAV. Getting the rovers righted—“

 

“Righted?!” Blair interjected.

 

“Right, yeah,” Watney said, shaking his head and visibly refocusing. “Didn’t I mention, the rovers didn’t come to rest upright? My rover was on its side and the second rover was completely upside down. No idea how the canvas bubble for the Big 3 didn’t burst, but I’m really glad it didn’t. In the end, the actual mechanics of getting the rovers righted was easy enough. Doing it on a broken leg was another challenge.”

 

Newman winced. “We need to get some real scans of that leg as soon as possible,” she said. “You may have done some permanent damage.”

 

“Pretty sure I did,” Watney said. “That break was three years ago and I’m still limping. The pain comes and goes, but it never really went away either.”

 

Newman sighed and muttered to herself. It sounded like she was planning a litany of medical testing for Watney just as soon as she could.

 

Blair glanced at the other man and saw that he looked just as enthused as anyone would be when confronted by a doctor planning to run every test in the book on him.

 

“Were you at least able to at least rest the leg for a while?” Newman finally asked.

 

Watney nodded. “As much as I could,” he said. “After I got the rovers righted and everything squared away, I think I stayed parked out there for at least a week.”

 

He caught Newman’s look and rushed on. “I would have stayed longer, but I needed to get my farm back up and running. And I wanted to get to the MAV before any of the Hab’s systems conked out. I didn’t really have a choice about staying. I splinted my leg before I left and stayed off it as much as I could,” he added.

 

Newman subsided, not looking mollified, but seeming to admit that Watney had done the best he could in his trying circumstances.

 

“Were you able to stay off it once you got to the MAV?” she asked.

 

“Once I got the farm set-up and the Hab’s systems and solar cells wired into the MAV,” Watney said.

 

“You connected the solar cells to the MAV?” Blair asked, surprised. The MAV was designed to draw power from the fuel it generated from stored hydrogen. Converting it to solar energy would have been a feat of engineering.

 

He tried not to think about the potential damage to the MAV’s systems. He’d have to get Fowler to run a complete and _very_ thorough diagnostic and inspection before they even considered launching the MAV.

 

“Yes,” Watney said, drawing Blair from his thoughts. For a moment, Blair was confused, then realized that Watney was answering his question.

 

“I didn’t want to use up all the MAV’s fuel before you lot even got here,” he said.

 

“Yeah, that would have been awkward,” Newman said.

 

“Is that why you didn’t use any of the pre-supply materials NASA sent for this mission?” Blair asked.

 

Watney blinked, looking a little stunned.

 

“You know,” he said slowly, “I didn’t even think about it… Why didn’t I think about it?”

 

His gaze went unfocused and he began murmuring under his breath. From what Blair could make out, it sounded like he was calculating resource costs and benefits of using the Ares IV pre-supply materials. He seemed to have completely forgotten that Blair and Newman were there.

 

Blair exchanged a worried look with Newman and decided it was time to wrap up the discussion.

 

There was a great deal about Watney’s story that Blair still didn’t know, but that would have to wait. He had enough to pass on to NASA and he could tell was Watney’s strength was flagging. Newman’s worried frown told him that she wanted Watney resting as soon as possible.

 

“I think that’s probably all I need for today,” Blair said, startling Watney from his reverie.

 

Watney frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked, but something in his expression looked relieved.

 

Blair nodded. “I’m sure,” he said. “You’ll probably have to go through this story another dozen or so times with NASA, so don’t worry, we’ll hear it all.”

 

Watney grimaced. “Should just send them the damn logs,” he muttered to himself.

 

Blair thought about asking but he could see Watney’s posture drooping.

 

It could wait until tomorrow, he decided.

 

“So,” Watney said, then had to stifle a yawn, “what’s next?”

 

“Next, you get some rest and fluids,” Newman said.

 

“Food?” Watney asked, almost plaintively.

 

“Not yet,” Newman said. When Watney looked about to protest, she continued. “Seriously. Food is not a good idea right now. Your body isn’t used to it and it would just make you sick and miserable.”

 

Watney looked mutinous and Newman held up a hand.

 

“ _But_ ,” she said, “if you’re more stable after some rest, I’ll consider getting you something easy to digest tomorrow. Deal?”

 

“I’m sold,” Watney said after a minute of contemplation.

 

He glanced over at Blair.

 

“And you?” he said.

 

“Well, first I have to go spring your miracle survival on NASA,” Blair said.

 

Watney gave him a ghost of a smile.

 

“Wish I could see their faces,” he murmured.

 

“Oh you’ll get to,” Blair said. “I’m expecting to wake up tomorrow with a million messages in my inbox. And there’s no way any of this is going to blow over before we get back to Earth.”

 

“True, true,” Watney said, settling back into the chair. He looked to be about to drop off to sleep and seemed to be drawing comfort from Blair talking.

 

It made sense, Blair thought. Ares crews got used to living on top of each other and dealing with the noise of the crew around them. After going four years without, having a crew moving and talking around him seemed to be comforting to Watney.

 

So Blair decided to be a little more verbose than he usually was.

 

“Then,” Blair said, “I have to brief the rest of the crew, and we have to figure out how to get seven astronauts home on a MAV meant to carry six.”

 

“Plus experimental data and samples,” Watney said. He was blinking slowly, his eyes taking longer to open with each blink. “Collected the… damn… samples. Can’t… leave ‘em…”

 

His eyes closed and his voice trailed off.

 

Newman sighed and stepped forwards, draping a blanket across Watney.

 

“I’ll type up my medical report for you,” she said, “then try and get Watney to lie down in a real bed.”

 

“Give him one of the crew bunks,” Blair ordered.

 

Newman smiled. “That was the plan,” she said.

 

He nodded at her and levered himself to his feet. The curtain around the medical area swished closed behind him as he paused to look around the Hab. On the other side of the open space, Griffith and Dale were conversing over food. Fowler was absorbed in the terminal at his station and Stein was leaning against Blair’s own station, clearly waiting for him.

 

“What’s the word?” she asked.

 

Blair ignored her for a moment and quietly called the whole crew over. The briefing he gave them was short — they’d likely learn the entire story over the next few days, but right now Watney deserved the privacy to decide who and when the more personal details were released to.

 

As difficult as retelling the story was, Blair was pleased to see that his crew universally expressed sympathy for Watney’s experiences and admiration for his tenaciously-fought successes. He knew — and they knew — that Watney’s survival was going to change everything about their mission, but none of them batted an eye or voiced a single protest or complaint.

 

He sent Fowler and Stein off with instructions to start considering the clean-up they’d have to do to get the MAV serviceable and the modifications they’d have to make to get it to carry a seventh astronaut. Dale and Griffith were assigned to review the complete complement of scientific assignments for this mission and start determining which of those could be done in a shorter timeframe.

 

How long the Ares IV crew and their new member stayed on Mars would be determined by how much work the MAV needed and how much recovery Watney required to be flight-worthy, but Blair knew those questions might not be answerable for a while.

 

In the meantime, the crew needed to be kept busy.

 

He watched the crew head back to their workstations for a moment, then settled behind his own terminal to contact NASA. He was lucky that the orbits were still lined up enough to make communication possible at this hour.

 

Faced with the blinking light of an open connection, Blair gathered his thoughts and began his report.

 

“Mission Control, this is Ares IV Actual and I have to report a pressing development to our mission.” He paused and considered how to go on. Finally, channeling the irrepressible spirit he remembered from Watney’s pre-launch videos and social media presence, Blair said what he thought the other astronaut would if he were giving the report: “This will come as quite a shock to the Ares III crew. And to NASA. And to the entire world. Mark Watney is still alive.”

* * *

 

It was midnight at NASA Mission Control and only a skeleton crew remained on duty. Most of the personnel had gone home, taking a well-earned break after supervising the successful landing of the Ares IV crew. No communications were planned with the crew until midday tomorrow, and the Martian scientific experiments weren’t scheduled to start until the day after.

 

So the CAPCOM officer was very surprised when a note flashed up on his screen indicating an incoming message from the Ares IV crew.

 

If he’d known how much chaos that message would provoke, he would’ve had at least another cup of coffee before opening it.

 

Maybe changed his shirt too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s it for this story, but don’t worry, there’s more coming! Thank you so much for reading and for all the encouraging comments! You guys are the reason I keep writing; your comments are inspiring and much appreciated when I’m stuck.
> 
> Up next: NASA learns of and reacts to Mark’s survival. (Which is, I know, what most of you are waiting for.) I’m diving right into writing the next story, so I’m hoping there won’t be too much of a gap between this story and the next one.
> 
> If you’re interested, connect with me on tumblr at thekearlyn.tumblr.com

**Author's Note:**

> Ares IV Crew:  
> Blair Ortega (mission command, EVA specialist)  
> Leah Stein (pilot, astronomy)  
> Ashley Newman (flight surgeon, microbiology)  
> Kelli Dale (meteorologist, geologist)  
> Isaac Griffith (life sciences)  
> Royce Fowler (engineering, computer sciences)


End file.
